Understanding 19th Century Surveyors in Bampton

Richard Spurrett descended from two generations of itinerant travellers, and in his younger years covered a lot of ground across the Lambourne downs and through to London.  He was born in Woodstock in Oxfordshire.  His mother died in childbirth in 1790 in Putney, when he was just nine years old.  He married and had a young family in Woodstock in the early 1800’s and sometime after 1809 he became settled in Bampton, for reasons we do not yet know.  By 1814 he was sentenced to the House of Correction for leaving his wife and children in the care of the overseers of the poor in Bampton, possibly searching for work.  What is surprising is that within a decade of this he became “by all accounts … a ‘professional’ surveyor of roads”, (from Notes on Bampton Vestry Records by J L Hughes-Owen).  

What was a ‘surveyor’ during the 1800s?   The title ‘surveyor’ sounds rather grand in modern terminology but was somewhat less revered at the time. There were two types of surveyors in the 1800s: 

1) The Vestry was responsible for management of local affairs and comprised a selection of church appointees and selected parishioners (usually rate payers).  Think of it as the district council of the time, where the unit of management was the parish.  The parish surveyor was a position appointed annually by the Vestry. In case of Bampton, they appointed one for the hamlet of Weald and one for Bampton in the early 1800s.  Sometimes the term ‘way warden’ was used for the same role.  The maintenance of the local roads was the responsibility of each parish from 1555 until the formation of the county councils in 1888.  Each parishioner was liable to give four days free work to the maintenance of the roads (later increased to six) and it was the job of the surveyor to direct the work and repairs.   Repairs usually involved filling in holes with gravel.  Some parishioners paid others to stand in to cover their obligation.   

2) Since the 1663, local trusts could be set-up by an Act of Parliament to build and administer ‘turnpikes’ – gravelled roads for which a toll could be charged. During the industrial revolution and until the coming of the railways, the thousands of turnpike trusts established across Britain brought about a revolution in the transport of goods and materials. In the case of Bampton, there was the Witney to Clanfield turnpike built in 1771 running from into Bampton from the north and out west to Clanfield over Mill Bridge (see picture above).  Later in 1776, a leg was added from Bampton to Buckland including the establishment of Tadpole bridge.  Within the parish of Bampton this new leg went over Fishers Bridge, Meadow Brook Bridge, and the Isle of Wight Bridge.   The turnpike trusts appointed a surveyor to attend to the road and to that part of it that went over the bridges that were the responsibility of the Crown until 1888 when they were transferred to the newly created County Councils.  The Turnpike Trusts met at the Quarter Sessions and annually approved the bill for the surveyor’s work on the Crown’s portion, namely road over the bridge and 100 yards each side. The surveyor of the trust was a salaried role.  The maintenance was undertaken by a team of men (size unclear) taking two or three days per bridge, but on other occasions more substantial repair of the bridge was also required.  The two Bampton turnpikes were ‘depiked’ in 1874 and fell into some state of disrepair.  

Richard was employed as the surveyor, by the trusts for both Bampton turnpikes from 1828 to 1831 (and died in 1832) and his son Thomas took over from 1833 until 1878 when he was dismissed and the responsibility taken over by the newly formed county council.  Thomas was also the Bampton parish surveyor appointed by the vestry for several years until 1859.     

The parish surveyor was a prestigious role and at times was fiercely contested. In 1859, there was quite a scene when Thomas was narrowly elected parish surveyor after legitimately voting for himself.  The parish surveyor had the right to set and collect a rate for the purpose of road mending, plus the role also gave the opportunity to blend in other forms of complimentary work.  For example, Richard’s enterprising son Thomas had a haulage business so charged for transporting of gravel from the quarry to mend the roads.  In addition, he had a coal haulage business taking coal from the wharf at Tadpole bridge (across the toll bridges he was paid to maintain) for delivery in Bampton and the surroundings. 

As can be seen, the ‘surveyor’ in the context of Richard and his son Thomas was a trade that did not require an extensive education, or apprenticeship.  The title is perhaps a bit misleading when viewed through modern interpretations. It also was not a full-time occupation as Thomas showed with his side businesses – he was at times also the landlord of the Elephant and Caste pub and had a small-holding of 40 acres farming sheep.   

The entrepreneurial streak in Thomas seems to have rubbed of on many of his children and also through to their children. But maybe this was a result of the declining agricultural economy during the late 1800s.